The mobile phone as a communication tool is pretty universal when it comes to voice calls, but phones are just as popular for sending text messages as they are for chatting with each other. That is a problem for one set of users who are either partially sighted or completely blind. Nokia has now come up with a possible solution for anyone who cannot read text on a screen by implementing a new system of reading braille on a touchscreen phone.

The Nokia Braille Reader Application (NBRA) has been developed at Nokia Beta Labs. Each text message is fed into the NBRA and the characters converted into braille. Then each character is read out to the user using the vibrating facility of the phone. As braille is a series of raised dots each character can be communicated by changing the vibration to depict raised or not with a whole sequence allowing the user to figure out which character it is. After a short time of using NBRA it should become easy for the user to understand quickly what the characters are based on the vibrations being emitted.

Playback of the text message is only done when a finger is touching the screen which allows the user to pause at any time by lifting their finger off the screen. Large buttons have also been placed in set areas on the screen for different functionality like entering and exiting NBRA; making it easier for the user to navigate to and from the app. Best of all it is totally free to download and use and is compatible with phones based on S60 5th edition such as the N97, N97 mini, 5800 XpressMusic, 5530, 5230, and X6 handsets.

There are already solutions for the blind that allow text messages to be read out, but that is not always going to be ideal. Maybe the text message contains information you would rather not share with those around you, and it’s not always possible to wear headphones to listen to messages. Nokia’s solution is very discreet as it is completely silent.

The one drawback of such a system is how much of a battery drain it may be. Vibrating the phone a lot is going to sap your battery quite quickly, but I don’t know how it compares to reading out texts in terms of which one uses more juice. I’m sure you are still going to get a day’s use out of your Nokia handset though, even if you are texting a lot.

I also wonder if the system could be reversed allowing users to write texts using this vibrating braille system. If different taps on the screen can set the vibration feedback then it could be quite easy to achieve.